


Your name is Gwaine

by Night_Faye



Series: Your name is [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Also this is very self indulgent, Gaheris (Arthurian) - Freeform, Gareth (Arthurian) - Freeform, Gen, Gwaine vignettes, Gwaine's family and backstory in Merlin as I imagine it, Gwaine's nobility, The life of Gwaine, This is an experimental way of writing, but hopefully the story still tells itself well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29364933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Night_Faye/pseuds/Night_Faye
Summary: Your name is Gwaine, and this is your story.
Series: Your name is [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2165268
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Your name is Gwaine

You are born in the dead of winter and three months early, and you are not expected to survive, but your mother holds you close, and Anwen, wife of the Dragon Lord Heddwyn, produces a charm and places it on your chest. You are the first born son to this noble house, and this, their hope, is all they can give.  
  


You are born already fighting against against forces greater than anyone knows, fighting for your own life. Fighting to live past your first minute, your first hour, your first day.  
  


You survive, because that is what you do, and you are given the name Gwaine, for the month you should have been born in.

* * *

When you are a year old, the King of Camelot gains a son and loses a wife, and three months after there are Knights in the square and Heddwyn is taken, to avoid a war between the two kingdoms. Heddwyn screams of betrayal, and Caerleon turns his head away.  
  


Anwen hides, silently sobbing, in your mother’s chambers, while your mother holds you cradled to her chest in one arm, and presses your sister, Clarrisant, close to her side. Camelot does not know the Dragon Lord has a wife. Caerleon isn’t cruel enough yet to tell. They had been friends for the longest of times, the King and the Dragon Lord, had grown up together.  
  


Anwen never forgives the King, and she leaves.

* * *

You are six, and you don’t remember how your father’s face looks in the flesh. The halls of your home carry his paintings, but they do not show the little imperfections your mother speaks of so fondly. The slight scar on his upper lip he got when they were just children, or the eye bags he had gained to watch both your sister and you in the cradle as your mother got sleep in the early dawn mornings, before the wet nurse would arrive and he would leave for morning training drills.  
  


He had gone to the battlefield three years ago, and hasn’t been home since. Though you and Clarrisant steal the letters that your mother does not lock away- (The ones that don’t contain the horrors he sees, and the tell of fallen brothers, those are always carefully placed in the small chest, and left high up where neither you nor she could ever hope to reach them, even though your sister is four years older and much taller than you)- And the both of you use them to practice your reading, to practice copying the swoops of ink that formed the letters.  
  


Your mother must have mentioned this in one of her replies, because he always, always, seems to have a section at the bottom for the two of you, and it always gives you this warm feeling in your chest. Even when you don’t know most of the words, and pester Clarrisant or your mother to read it aloud once you’ve had enough of trying to yourself. You see your name, and that is enough.

* * *

You are seven, and staying in the family estate, when you can finally read every word in your section. You realize your father must use the easy ones but you do not care, because it is meant for _you_ _,_ and these sections come to you on their own sheet, now.  
  


You are proud of this, and you rush to tell your mother, but she is crying and barely being consoled by a man you have always seen as an uncle, even if he is not related. Your father calls him brother, and that is enough for you.  
  


You are confused, and only grow more so when your mother catches sight of you and begins crying louder as she bolts out of her seat and wraps you in one of her large, all encompassing hugs that she’s always given you to make you feel safe.  
  


You don’t learn what it means until three days later, when the First Knight appears on your doorstep, with your father’s sword, chainmail, and cloak, as well as a small bag that carries his wedding ring.  
  


You and your sister sleep within your mother’s bed that night, clutched tightly to her sides. She has lost a large chunk of her world, and the two of you are the two remaining ones that she clings to.  
  


She adds his ring to the pendant you have worn around your neck since you were old enough to not choke on the links of metal, the pendant from Anwen that may not be, but just as well may be, the reason you did not die before you could live.  
  


You don’t take it off, after that, not even when you sleep.

* * *

The winter is harsh, and the money your family has dwindles, so your mother goes to the King for help.  
  


He has grown cruel since the death of Heddwyn, without the joint effort of his close friend and his wife Annis to temper him. He turns your mother away, does not look at you and your sister clinging tightly to the skirts of her dress. He ignores her sobbing pleads, and waves her away.  
  


The three of you are removed by the guards, and the great doors slam in your faces. None of you see the look that Annis gives her husband, and the image of a King who does not care, even for his friends, is cemented forever in your mind.  
  


You were only a year old, you do not remember when he was a kinder man.  
  


You’ve never truly known your father, except through your mother’s and sister’s stories, and the letters he had sent, his own stories of a sort.  
  


Stories, and a ring, are all you have of him. And he gave his life fighting for a King who does not care, who does not see the red that stains his hands.  
  


You decide you hate Kings.

* * *

When you are eight, your mother marries a cruel man that she does not love, but he finds her equivalent to a beautiful painting that he wants.  
  


She does it for your sister, and she does it for you, so that the both of you will still have the world as you know it at your finger tips, and all the opportunities that being the children, even if only by marriage, of a living nobleman gives you.  
  


You and your sister detest this man, and you can both tell he detests you right back. If your mother is his painting, you and your sister are the note written across the bottom in thick black paint to the first owner that cannot be removed.  
  


Your sister hides her displeasure, though, has always been more proper than you, and acts every bit the young lady of court she should be.  
  


You begin to hate her a little for it, can’t stand how she hides her anger so well, how she can shrug on a disguise so effortlessly in front of those that expect it of her.  
  


You don’t know the word ‘Jealousy’ yet, but you feel it in the pit of your stomach whenever she does it. Hatred and anger such as this should not be so easy to hide.  
  


The only time you act as you should is when you are with your uncle, or with your mother.  
  


You decide you hate nobles.

* * *

A year later you have a younger brother, and he is named Gaheris, and he is the only thing from your step-father that you do not mind.  
  


He looks like your mother, with a tuft of blond hair, and brilliant blue eyes. You love him for the blood you share, and in spite of the blood you do not.  
  


You decide this is someone who would be worth dying for.

* * *

At thirteen, you get another little brother, named Gareth, and you learn that your heart can hold one more thing from your step-father.  
  


He looks more like his father than Gaheris does, with dark hair and dark eyes, but where your step-father’s gives way to the shadows in his soul, your brother’s gives way to the softness of a summer night.  
  


You try and count the stars in his eyes when he stares up at you from his cradle. You always lose track from how infinite they seem.  
  


Your sister says they aren’t stars, that stars can’t be in eyes.  
  


You disagree, somewhat because you honestly do, somewhat because the only thing the two of you agree on these days are your love for your mother, your hatred of your step-father, and the knowledge that you need to protect your younger brothers.  
  


Your step-father’s hard eyes don’t only land on you and Clarrisant, after all. His own children are not spared, the only difference is he has standards for them, as they are of his blood.  
  


He dangles his love, his pride, as if it were a carrot to lure a wayward horse. But unlike the horse it is unlikely that Gaheris and Gareth will ever receive it.

* * *

It’s at fifteen that you ‘fall’ down a staircase, and blood runs down your face from your head, from under your hair, as your sister panics over your body and holds something to the wound.  
  


Your eyes are blurry, and your mouth feels thick, but you insist that you did not fall.  
  


Your sister believes you. You are so close to being of age.  
  


Your step-father has decided he wants the Orkney lands for himself, after all.  
  


You survive, and your sister is not surprised when you pack what you need and strap your sword to your belt.  
  


Your mother cries because another chunk of her world is being torn from her. Your mother smiles because this time there will still be a thread to clutch, because you are not joining your father on the other side of the veil.  
  


Gaheris doesn’t understand, not really, but you hold him tight and you tell him you love him, and if he ever needs you, once he’s old enough to do so, he can come find you and you’ll make it all better. He trusts you, because you always have.  
  


Gareth is only two, he won’t know you beyond stories.  
  


Something sour sits in your throat of putting your brothers through what you went through as a son, but you’d rather be a story with a warm heartbeat somewhere out in the world, than a story and a cold gravestone behind a large house on the land of an abandoned estate.  
  


You become a vagabond, and you leave stories in your footprints wherever you go.

* * *

You are twenty five when you meet a dark haired kid that’s only got a year or two on Gaheris in the middle of a pub fight.  
  


He and his blonde, blue eyed friend are out numbered five to one. Their chances are slim to none, and you sort of like the look of those odds.  
  


You take a knife to the thigh, and the next thing you know there is pain in your head and the world is going dark.

* * *

When you wake, you’ve learned you saved the life of a prince, and you really don’t care for that at all.  
  


But you’ve made a friend in this Merlin, so even though you are banished not too long later, you come back.  
  


You risk your life for a future King, and it doesn’t chafe like you always thought it would.  
  


You decide that maybe this one isn’t so bad.

* * *

He really isn’t, it turns out.  
  


A year later you find yourself as a knight, under a King you consider a friend, and you understand what your father meant when he called his fellow knights his brothers.  
  


A veil rips open, and you and your King- (Never mind the fact that Uther is still alive. Arthur is good as King in your mind.)- and your fellow knights, and Merlin, because Merlin is always there, set off.  
  


Arthur and Merlin are both planning to sacrifice themselves. Arthur for Camelot, and Merlin for Arthur.  
  


You plan to break your promise to yourself to not become a gravestone. You don’t know you aren’t the only one being silent about your plans for it to be _you_ _.  
  
_

You’ve always considered Lancelot the noblest of you all. You’re always loud about it, too, a common born knight being the best of you all, partly for the look the other knights not of your circle get on their faces.  
  


Partly for Lancelot’s smile. It’s enough of a reward for speaking a simple truth.  
  


Merlin’s smile is more than you could ask for.

* * *

You wake on cold stone just in time to see the magic whipping around the alter, Merlin standing with gold eyes as the Cailleach closes the veil.  
  


The servant, who is so much more than the title he bears, has a bloodied, dripping hand held over the stone.  
  


He catches Lancelot’s eyes, sees them go wide, and the spark of fear. _Ah,_ you think. _He knew_ _.  
  
_

It explains nearly everything of how Merlin is so much closer to Lancelot. It had hurt, some, but you accepted that they had met first, that they likely had history of some sort.

The deep hurt you’ve shoved away for a year fades like smoke in a glass.  
  


You smile. Grin, actually. You have no issue with magic. You are likely alive today because of it, because of a charm that hangs from your neck.  
  


You glance at Merlin, again. And decide you’re definitely alive today because of it.

* * *

You stand, and nod to Lancelot.  
  


And you smile softly at Merlin when the Cailleach is gone and he realizes you’ve seen.  
  


He is, after all, the only one who knows that you have noble blood coursing through your veins.  
  


You decide you’ll find time to tell him your entire story once you’ve returned to Camelot.  
  


You decide you’ll tell Lancelot, as well.  
  


You’ve found your home.


End file.
